Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Salmon Politics

Red, or sockeye, salmon from the Kenai River

I’ve
been playing hooky for the past couple of weeks. July is salmon season, and I’ve
been chasing them up and down the river trying to get some put aside for the
winter. As far as salmon runs go, this has been a weird year. The king, or Chinook,
salmon return has been the lowest since they started counting them in 1984. The
red, or sockeye, salmon run has been above average, with over 1.5-million up
the Kenai.

In
order to ensure enough kings made it up to spawn draconian measures have been
put into place: no commercial setnetters were allowed to fish through July, and
no sport fishing for kings has been allowed. This effectively put a serious
financial hurt to those who earn a living by fishing, both the commercial
fishermen and the guides on the river. (More the commercial fishermen than the
guides.)

Of
course, the two user groups - sport and commercial - were quick to blame each
other for the low return of kings. People always want to assign blame,
particularly to someone else. Truth of the matter is it’s not just the Kenai
River with low returns of king salmon, it’s statewide; all the rivers are
experiencing low returns. (Oddly enough, the Lower 48 runs of kings are setting
records.)

Watching
all of this reminds me of when the Feds threatened to take over all fish and
game management from the State. The prospect of the Feds taking over the State’s
successful management of fish stocks should have, one would think, unite
Alaskans and made them cooperative. (The salmon stocks were managed by the Feds
before we became a state, and the stocks were dwindling. In 1959, after
statehood, Alaska took control and the stocks recovered.) Such was not the
case. Each user group - sport, commercial and subsistence - argued they should
receive preference in allocation. The
petty bickering and obstinate refusals to compromise by each user group put the
fisheries in real danger of allowing Federal takeover. In the end, fortunately,
Alaska retained control of the fisheries within state waters. The following is
a poem I wrote at the time to reflect what was going on in the late 1980’s, but
with the current finger-pointing and bickering it is just as pertinent today.